


What Is and What Should Never Be

by mrapollo



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Implied Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:50:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrapollo/pseuds/mrapollo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. He isn't as well-read as he should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is and What Should Never Be

**Author's Note:**

> So to make things run more smoothly in this fic I changed the canon around just a little bit. Basically, this fic takes place on Christmas Eve, 1961. All events up to attack on the CIA base and the scenery change to the mansion happen, Shaw just works slower and the mutants have a year to bond before the Cuban Missle Crisis. It isn't a very big deal but I thought it was worth mention.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Erik did not lie awake in excitement on Christmas Eve, 1961. On not one occasion in his life, even before the War, had he been in any excitement on the twenty fourth of December. Being Jewish, Erik had no interest in Christmas and, as he supposed, never would. It isn’t a bad thing, Christmas. It isn’t as if the festive lights and the happy, singing shop windows of the many cities he’s stalked are things to be endured. He leaves Christmas to itself and it leaves Erik to himself. And that’s how Erik likes it. With everything.

Until Charles.

When Charles Francis Xavier came into Erik’s life Erik became an alien to himself. He had a happiness that had been buried in him so deep only a daring telepath could wring it from his ever-violent depths. Charles had found that happiness, ripped it from him, tore him open, and sewed him shut. Erik’s happiness had become wonderful, but tragically strung to Charles. A man’s happiness doesn’t belong to anyone but himself, Erik would think on the many nights he lay awake next to his friend. Though Erik had forgotten that part of himself, his forgetfulness was his and his happiness was his and no one, not even the man who revealed the light, was allowed to steal from him any part of him. Erik had had too much stolen from him. He became cold to the telepath.  
***  
Erik slept in silence and alarm, the rise of his chest never shifting a single fiber of the opulent blankets Charles’ provided. He was safe in the Xavier mansion, but he would never take a chance and his deeply ingrained instinct would never let him. The creek of the a solid hardwood floor panel to his right had him shooting up, hesitating only to remember he no longer slept with a knife, and reaching with tensed hands to choke the life out of the intruder. His hands found swirling air and Erik was rocketed from the bed by his own violent force, landing in a heap on the floor before the small, shifting ethereal mass.

“Please be careful, Mr. Lensherr, I don’t want you all hurt,” a voice from above Erik said. He recognized the voice, but it was a child’s. Not a child like “the children", an actual child. Erik looked up and was greeted with a ghastly boy. The metalbender had had the pleasure of a thousand images gruesome enough to make a lesser man faint, but nothing like this. The sheer shock of having a /ghost/ child standing before him was enough to bring him to his feet in seconds. He fell back against the bed at the realization that his traditional trousers and turtleneck now covered what minutes before had been bare skin.

The child was in the middle of sentence when Erik shot up to full height, a show of power and intimidation. “Explain yourself. I do not usually ask questions, so consider this sympathy,” Erik demanded. The child’s transparent lips formed a dignified frown and Erik stared, shoulders slumping and intimidation dropping to zero.  
The spirit was the picture of Charles’ mysterious youth. Erik had asked his friend about his upbringing many times and each time he had been shown only happy and small snipits of memory. Always of the time before his father died, save for the last instance in which Erik was shown a piece of what he had called “The Childhood Puzzle.”

It was in the middle of the night when Erik was granted vision into Charles’ past. Charles was passed out next to him, a combination of liquor and exhaustion sending the telepath to a deep slumber. With an arm over Erik’s hard body, Charles began to project. He projected flashes of pictures, quickly erased by new ones. Nothing lasted long enough to stick except the image of Charles in his kitchen, standing before a small, blue girl.

The voice of what Erik now knew as young Charles brought him back to what he assumed was reality.

The boy’s hand was outstretched, and a small smile on his face. Erik noticed darker spots, mostly on the ghost’s face, but thought nothing of it. He already had enough questions.

“Charles?” Erik asked. The youth looked confused, but smiled.

“Don’t be silly, I’m not Charles. I’m just Charles to you. ,” the spirit said, beaming as the young Xavier never had, “I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past!" Erik crossed his arms, trying again to portray the picture of power and control. He raised an eyebrow and tried to keep his face clean of anger, confusion, and annoyance. “I’m Jewish. And if this is you, Charles, playing tricks on my mind again, then we’re done,” he responded to the spirit with finality, “And I’m going back to sleep.”

The Ghost of Christmas Past frowned in misunderstanding. “That’s all fine and good, Mr. Lensherr, but we really must be going. We don’t have much time, it’s already half past twelve!” The spirit got on his toes and made himself tall enough to grab Erik’s hand from his chest.

A touch of fingers and the room was shifting in a nightmarish surge.

***  
Erik was seconds from lunging at the child, throwing to the wind the memory of what happened the last time he tried to attack the thing, when he heard the voice of his mother. She was speaking in quiet, sweet German to his father. And him. His mother was speaking to him. Erik’s mouth went open in shock and his breath caught in his chest. The Ghost of Christmas Past tugged on Erik’s sleeve and shattered the reunion.

“She can’t hear you or see you, this is the past. So don’t be silly,” the spirit said, still clinging to Erik’s sleeve. Erik was content to watch once he realized his mother was not talking to him, but a shade of himself. This was Erik’s memory of the Hannukah he had when he was eleven.

“You told me you were the Ghost of /Christmas/ Past,” Erik stated flatly, not giving ear to the response. He stared on.

The memory was in perfect clarity, no longer obfuscated by the trials of time. Erik’s mother stood with his father, a hand in eleven-year-old Erik’s hair and the other joined with the hand of the father. They were lighting the third candle and it was Erik’s turn to light it this day. He lit it with a match and smiled, turning in his chair to beam up at his mother. Erik had forgotten he had the muscles to smile like that. He stepped forward, reaching out to run a hand through her hair, to feel it as it had been before the Nazi’s soiled it with her blood. The swirl of scenery ripped the memory from him and put him in the library of the Xavier mansion.

***  
This time, Erik did not have the clarity to restrain himself. He launched at the spirit, clattering to the floor right below it and snorting in anger. Erik was brought to his feet by an invisible hand and the spirit turned to him, furrowing its brow and shushing him. It was cute and silly, a boy trying to shush a man. Even if that boy was an eternal spirit. The Ghost of Christmas Past pointed ahead, and Erik looked on.

This scene was not a memory, at least not one of his. He was standing five feet from the former family Xavier, in the seemingly brighter and less aged mansion library. A younger Charles, the one Erik remembers from the memory given to him in sleep, not an ethereal and unearthly copy, stood before a great Christmas tree. The tree was only covered in decoration where the young boy’s skinny arms could reach. If the pungent smell of alcohol and slight whiff of blood didn’t tell Erik no one in this room cared for Christmas, the sparse ornaments and tinsel did.

“Is this all right, Mother?” The young and significantly less diaphanous Charles asked as he whirled around and wrapped himself in a bit of tinsel. He smiled at her in a way Erik had never seen him smile. It wasn’t the smile of a happy child, not the one Erik was constantly giving his mother when he was a youth. The smile felt more of a frown turned on it’s head to create a mask. The clink of an alcohol bottle smacking against a glass in the way drunken men and women do in their clumsy haze was the only reply Charles got. A man appeared behind the great chair Charles’ mother was propped up in. Erik remarked to himself that the chair was that which was adjacent to the fireplace. Charles had insisted Erik claim it as his and use for every chess game. The man was seemingly sober and frowning grimly. Erik did not recognize him as Charles father, nor any man he had ever mentioned.

His curiosity at the mystery man did not have Erik looking twice at Charles face, and the spirit was forced to step in. “Look at his face, Mr. Lensherr. Please,” the spirit asked, its sad tone a strange break from the upbeat and childlike voice of before. Erik looked, and was greeted by a palette of dark colors spreading across Charles’ skin. His right eye was a black that seemed to drain his face of color and his jawline littered with what seemed to be teeth marks, hard enough to bruise, in yellow, grey, red and brown. The bruises did not suit the boy’s usual pallor.

For all the territory marks that marred Charles’ face, his mouth was untouched. Its frown was enough of a wound. Erik turned to the spirit, unable to look at his friend’s real childhood any longer. Raven was right when she called it a hardship, and Erik felt a pang of guilt at the rememberence of his comment when he was greeted by the ostentatious mansion for the first time. “Why are you showing me this? It isn’t mine,” Erik asked the spirit, his voice cracking only once. The spirit sighed. “Why do only your things matter?” Erik was about to respond when he was ripped from the library and sat back in bed, clothing still on.

The spirit was gone, leaving only a cold wind from the open window.

***  
Erik sat on the edge of the bed, covers tossed aside and hair ruffled by the kneading and pulling of his hands. He was frustrated and confused. Why hadn’t Charles shared this with him, if Erik had been forced to share everything? Was it even true? What on Earth had Sean put in his water? He mulled over too many questions and few answers when there was a distinct thump of something falling on the floor behind him. He jumped and turned quickly, eyeing up what he assumed was the next Ghost.

“Hello, Erik! It’s a pleasure to see you,” the Ghost of Christmas Present greeted him with a wave and a smile. Charles’ smile. His actual, happy smile. It was comforting and Erik was slipping back into the net of safety that being around Charles’ once provided before he noticed what the Ghost was wearing. It was an awfully garish and slim Santa suit, complete with the hat. “You have got to be joking,” Erik replied flatly, turning away and putting his head in his hands.

The spirit didn’t seem to be offended, it was much more jovial than the ethereal child that was the last Ghost, and it rounded the bed to sit next to Erik. The Ghost of Christmas Present patted Erik’s back gingerly and held its hand out. “Shall we go? I believe you know the drill by now.”

Erik took its hand with an exasperated sigh.

***  
The Ghost of Christmas Present and Erik found themselves in the library Erik had visited not ten minutes before, though this library was much more worn and friendly. It was the library Erik knew. The spirit piped up brightly. “Well, this is certainly a nice place for a Christmas.”

Erik only frowned until he noticed Charles at the tree again. The tree this time was decorated in full, as it had been when Erik saw it earlier in the day. The same wrapped gifts were under the tree, none of them his, but many of them for him. All from Charles. The kids were far too scared to get Erik anything. Raven and Charles were speaking quietly, both kneeled down and setting down even more presents. It was when Erik looked at Charles clothes, the same he was wearing that very day, that he realized this was not a vision or memory. It was the present.

“You must be the Ghost of Christmas Present, then.” Erik said flatly, to noone. The spirit nodded and smiled.

The spirit remained silent and Erik became the spectator again.

Charles, finished with arranging all the poorly wrapped and tape-covered presents, stood up and took something from his pocket. He lifted the newspaper that protected the delicate object and smiled fondly at it. Raven got to her feet to join him, a smile playing on her face. The spirit nudged Erik and he looked back, unsure. He was met with only a grin and another nudge and Erik walked forward, peering over the shoulders of Charles and Raven before realizing that he could touch them without falling through them. With a hand set on both of their shoulders, Erik looked at the object Charles found precious.

It was an ornament, and Charles held it up so it could catch the light. Instead of the beautiful blown-glass that Erik had expected, it was a tacky mall ornament. There were six reindeer on a sleigh, with the two in front sitting side by side and hugging. Under each reindeer was a place for a name. The two in front were christened 'Erik’ and 'Charles’, with the rest being adorned by the names of the kids. On the 'Erik’ reindeer, it looked like someone had gone over it’s glossy fur with a black sharpie to make a sort of turtleneck. Raven giggled as soon as Erik made the connection.  
“Charles, he’s going to think it’s ridiculously stupid,” she said, playfully nudging Charles who, afraid of dropping the ornament that was very clearly safe, brought the tacky thing to his chest like a mother might a baby.

“He’ll love it. Or at least get a laugh from it,” Charles grinned back at her. He knelt down, one knee to the floor, and placed the ornament on the tree right above the pile of presents meant for Erik. Though the ornament had the names of the entire family, it was meant for Erik. “Hopefully,” Charles added under his breath.

Erik frowned again. The Ghost of Christmas Present came up behind him and pat him on the back. “We’ve got to get going, it’s time for your last visit.” Erik nodded, held his hand out and the world morphed back into a bedroom.

***  
It felt like ages before the last Ghost came. In reality it was only an hour, Erik knew that from the clock that ticked on and mocked him with every shift of its expensive hands, but he wasn’t inclined to believe the machine. Not after what he’d witnessed. As Erik lay down to close his eyes and hope for morning, a clank came from directly in front of him. He shot up to discover he was looking down at Charles, not up. Charles, though much shorter than Erik, was not nearly short enough to be looked down upon when Erik was sitting. Erik figured he must have been sitting in a chair. Seconds later, Erik felt the unfamiliar hunk of metal in the room and realized:  
He was.

“Hello, Magneto,” the spirit said in Charles’ voice. Erik was stunned to silence. Charles was in a wheelchair. He smiled at Erik as he had smiled at his drunken mother. “I’m the Ghost of Christmas Future, as you have probably guessed. You were always quite sharp.” This wasn’t Charles, it couldn’t be. Charles could walk. Charles, in fact, /loved/ to walk and forced Erik on a walk nearly every day. He looked down, unable to meet Charles gaze but finding that looking at the wheels of the chair was worse.

“Magneto,” Erik said solemnly, not wishing to ask why Charles was like this, “Why are you calling me that?”

“You prefer it these days, my friend. It would, in fact, be an offense to you not to call you by that name,” Charles responded, wheeling himself backwards a few feet and stopping to hold his hand out. “There isn’t much night left.”

Erik was left with his mouth made a line of perturbed displeasure and his body tensed with questions and fear. Fear and a regret he didn’t feel he recognized yet. “Don’t call me that. Call me Erik,” Erik demanded as he stood from the bed, “Call me Erik and I’ll go with you.”

Charles laughed hollowly. “I’m sorry but, you did so insist I call you Magneto and I’m not going to go against your wishes.” Erik, feeling defeated, crossed the great divide between them and acquiesced.

He took the spirit’s hand.

***  
The setting changed in its familiar flurry of color and object. Erik closed his eyes and waited out the storm. The disconnection of the spirit’s hand from Erik’s made him realize how cold this Ghost was, compared to the other two who’s hands were only the very edge of cold. He opened his eyes.

Before him was again, the library. It appeared cold this time and the wood creaked and groaned in its pained age. The thick lines and cracks of stress did not bode well for the library’s future. Erik ran his eyes up and down the slim pine the stood in the corner as it had every year, noticing that, like the previous vision, this tree was only decorated to where Charles could reach. Half of it was bare and no star shone. Charles was before the tree in the very same chair the Ghost of Christmas Future was confined to.

Erik was hit with a sudden fury, a fury at whoever committed this crime. He turned to the spirit and demanded an answer, clamping a hand down on the back of the chair and realizing that for the first time he was capable of damaging one of the Ghosts. The spirit sighed. “This is the image of your selfishness, Erik. I’m afraid I can’t reveal more than that. Your anger should illuminate much of your confusion,” the spirit said.

The spirit, as all the spirits had been, was wholly correct. Erik focused on his anger, felt it as Charles’ had once told him to feel it, and understood that the anger was directed at himself entirely. A lifetime of regrets and failings had focused Erik’s rage on himself, and this failure to comprehend why was the final strain. Caught up in his own struggle, Erik was unaware of Charles passing from the tree to the chair by the fireplace. His chair, The spirit nudged him with a frozen hand and Erik, again, looked on in pacified silence.

Charles took a package from the seat and fingered the tag. Erik walked over slowly, afraid to touch Charles as if he would break him, and read the tag over the telepath’s shoulder. It read:

“FROM: Charles TO: Erik”

The letters “MA” had been scribbled out and Erik’s name written beside them.

“He dosen’t blame you and never has. Not even for a moment,” a voice to the right of him stated, “This will happen, if you don’t stop it. Erik, I come to you to help you, not to harm you. You believe what you’re seeing now, I know that. But I don’t know that you’ll be able to remove yourself from your selfish rigidity long enough to stop it.” The spirit went back to its silence and appeared by the window. It was light out. “It’s time to leave, Erik. You know what you have to do now.” The Ghost of Christmas Future held its hand out and Erik hesitated. He couldn’t let this vision go, of all the visions he had had. Even the one of his mother was not as precious as this single glimpse into the future. Erik sighed and crossed the divide. He took the spirit’s hand.

***  
Light shone through the open window and the musk of newly cut grass filled Erik’s senses. A knock on his door and a muffled voice awoke him. The covers and sheets had been thrown from the bed in what must have been another of Erik’s night terrors. Erik smiled to himself once he felt the familiar and always worried presence of Charles in his mind. Still in his boxers, Erik lifted himself from bed and stretched on his way to the door, opening it with his mutation as he arrived. Charles greeted him with the loveliest smile and a cup of coffee. Black, as Erik had always preferred. Charles was chattering about Merry Christmases and all the issues Charles was having over whether or not to get Erik something for Christmas and the fretting he had to endure over the past few weeks, deciding if it was offensive to get a gift for Erik.

Erik just smiled and took Charles in his arms, lifting him off his feet and spilling the coffee all over the floor.


End file.
